If you’re like me in this, and I’m pretty sure it’s safe to assume that you are, you love junk foods. Junk foods can almost be addictive once you get to eating them. There is a very good reason why. They’re especially engineered to make you want to eat them, and then overeat them, and then still crave more of them.
Food companies spend millions
developing their products with teams of food scientists for the purpose of
creating a bliss point for you. That
bliss point is the exact balance of sugars, salt, fat, and flavors that isn’t
too much, but isn’t too little, and it makes your brain crave more.
While candy bars definitely fall
into the category of junk food, they are distinctly different than, say, potato
chips. I think Snickers candy bars live
up to their advertising claim that, “Snickers really satisfies.” I love them.
And when I eat a full size one I am indeed satisfied. I don’t really want to eat a second one, at
least not for a while.
But a bag of potato chips, that’s a
different story entirely. What evil
genius came up with the idea of a “serving size” for potato chips? There’s no such thing. For me, eating a serving size is only going
to make me mad.
When we decided to resume coffee
hour as the pandemic went on we decided to go with only prepackaged foods. And thus we started getting those serving
size bags of different flavored chips.
But one of those bags is hardly enough.
If I eat one bag I really want to eat seven more!
If you’re sitting here in the
sanctuary you probably have visions of your favorite junk food floating in your
mind’s eye right now. And if you’re
watching online I’m guessing there’s a good chance you’re contemplating going
to the pantry to get something, if you haven’t already!
I’m not going to go so far as to
call junk foods diabolical, but they definitely get into the realm of
insatiable greed.
I use them as an introduction to the
parable we read from Luke’s gospel today.
It’s known variously as the Parable of the Pounds, or the Parable of the
Minas, or as I prefer to see it called, the Parable of the Greedy and Vengeful
King.
This parable probably trips us
up. There’s a similar parable in
Matthew’s gospel – the Parable of the Talents.
There we have a wealthy man going on a journey. He summons some of his slaves and gives them
talents of money to manage while he is away.
A talent is a huge sum of money – something like 15 to 20 years wages
for the average worker. In that parable
when the man returns he asks for a reckoning from his slaves. Two have invested their talents and doubled
their money. A third has hidden the
money and done nothing with it. The man
praises the work of those who earned great returns. He has the third slave thrown into outer
darkness and destroyed.
It is a somewhat frightening
parable, but we get the point that we are the slaves and that we are to use the
things God has given us for the increase of his kingdom.
It is very difficult to read this
parable from Luke and not think we are supposed to give it the same
interpretation. However, I believe that
would be a mistake, a BIG mistake. In
Luke’s version I believe the parable is teaching the exact opposite lesson.
Let’s put this parable in its context within
Luke. All summer we’ve been following
Jesus’ journey to Jerusalem. This
journey makes up the central third of Luke’s gospel. This parable is the very end of that
journey. If we read just one verse
further we’re in the story of Palm Sunday.
There is our clue for how to interpret it.
In those days the economy was
basically stagnant. Unlike today where
we believe there is no limit to economic growth, then they saw all resources as
being limited. There was only so much
land. There was only so much money. No more.
No less. In order for me to get
more it meant that someone else had to have less. You clung dearly to what you had, and you
worked hard not to lose it.
As it is in Luke, the dynamics of
this parable would have been familiar to its hearers. A look at the history of that time shows
several leaders who did just what the king does. By some shrewdness or leveraging they had
come to have control of additional land, and they left to inspect it and impose
their rule. As was typical of kings of
the time, those who accepted his rule would be rewarded. Those who sought to undermine the king would
be punished or executed.
When the king in the parable goes
away he entrusts some of his riches to his slaves with the instructions to do
business with them until he gets back.
Specifically it is ten slaves and each is given a pound, also called a
mina. A mina was about three months
wages for a laborer. So, it’s a great
deal less than the talents in Matthew’s parable, but it is still a great deal
of money for a laborer.
When the king returns he asks for a
reckoning from his slaves. Now keep in
mind, the economy is stagnant. In order
for someone to have more someone else has to have less. So, we should be appalled that the first
slave called reports that he has achieved a tenfold increase in his master’s
wealth. There’s no way such growth could
have happened honestly. This slave has
to have leveraged, exploited, manipulated and trampled upon who knows how many
people to get such a return. The greedy
king is delighted. As a reward for such
shrewdness and dirty dealings this slave is put in charge of ten cities. We start to see the qualities this king wants
from his staff.
The second slave comes and has a
five-fold increase in the money. The
king is not quite as pleased by this. He
offers the slave no praise, but it is still the cunning attitude he is looking
for. He puts this slave in charge of
five cities.
We then hear about a third
slave. This one has hidden the money and
is not returning it. Unlike Matthew’s
version, where we join in criticizing this slave for being worthless and lazy,
here we should be in solidarity with him.
This slave was not about to manipulate and exploit others on behalf of
the overly greedy king. This king is
like a junk food mogul. He wants more
and more and more. He can never have
enough. But this slave will put a stop
to it in whatever way he can. In this
parable it is this slave who shows honesty and integrity.
The king is enraged. He takes the pound from the slave and adds it
to the pile already in front of his top achiever. Then the king says, “I tell you, to all those
who have, more will be given; but from those who have nothing, even what they
have will be taken away.”
I know this will give us
intellectual whiplash, for those are almost the same exact words used in
Matthew’s version of the parable, and there they are words of praise for
faithful disciples, but here those exact same words carry the opposite message.
Think about what I said
earlier. If we read one verse farther we
are into the Palm Sunday text. Jesus has
completed his journey to Jerusalem for the Passover holiday. Sunday he will enter the city. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday he will
publicly teach in the temple complex, Thursday he will have the last supper
with his disciples. By nighttime he will
be arrested. Friday he will be tried,
sentenced, and executed.
“For those who have nothing, even
what they have will be taken away.” Is
that not our Lord’s path in the days ahead?
Indeed it is.
I know it is hard to wrap our heads
around opposite meanings from similar parables in two gospels, but I think that
is indeed what we are to do.
Commentator R. Alan Culpepper says
this, “The parable underscores not the similarity between the king’s servants
and the followers of Jesus but the contrast between such a king and the kingdom
of God. The king condemns the third
servant as wicked, but Luke introduced the Gospel with a reference to “King
Herod of Judea” and alluded to the wicked things Herod had done. The reversal is subtle but unmistakable. When the wicked king rewards servants for
their acquisition of property and condemns the third servant as wicked, the
reader knows that the servant and the bystanders who protest his punishment are
not wicked but righteous.
On the other hand, Jesus too has
been on a journey, and he is on his way to Jerusalem where he will be hailed as
a king. He will confront the authorities
in the Temple and condemn the scribes who “devour widows houses”. He will praise the widow who gives two copper
coins and announce the immanent destruction of the city.
The parable, therefore, invites
reflection on what it means to claim Jesus as “the king who comes in the name
of the Lord”. The norm of royal
retribution applies: Every king rewards
those who serve him well and punishes his enemies. But in Jesus’ kingdom the standards for
reward and punishment are reversed.”
(New
Interpreter’s Bible, Volume 9, Pgs. 363-4)
In our world of more, more,
more. And products designed for us to
want more, more, more. God’s will is a contrast. More, more, more of junk food will make you
overweight, give you blood sugar problems, and give you cholesterol
problems. Then the manufacturers of junk
foods can sell you their diet foods. And
indeed some companies have divisions for both junk food and diet food
production. They get you coming and
going.
God’s reign will perhaps not “get
you coming and going,” but it will keep you always, from baptism to death. God’s will can keep us out of the
self-destructive cycle of greed and give us deep and lasting satisfaction. And I can promise you, that while it’s no sin
to eat a potato chip, and they can certainly be enjoyed, God’s way will keep us
healthy in body, mind, and spirit. That
is to be truly alive!
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